Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Gadgets
Hollow Spy Coins Are Perfect Metaphor of Current Economy
11:45PM Jesus Diaz | Back in the good old days of the Cold War, spies didn’t have encrypted mobile phones or digital thingamajigs to do their thing, so they did their spy business with classic spy stuff like spy camera-pens, spy shoe transmitters, spy bacon strips, and messages encoded on their spy underpants. Or these Hollow Spy Coins, which were used by the CIA and the KGB to hide poison or microfilms. Now you can buy them to store whatever is small enough to fit in them, like discarded nail bits. The coins are still in use by modern spies, however: Last year, the US Department of Defence cautioned its American contractors about hollow Canadian coins containing radio transmitters. More »
Gadgets
Cactus Back Scratcher Reaches That Place You Just Can’t Make Bleed
11:30PM Mark Wilson | For those in the audience who have really, and we mean really, scratchy backs, the cactus back scratcher should do the trick. That green tip is no gimmick; that’s 100% real Arizona cactus bud if we’ve ever seen it (and we have, friends). So if you purchase this $US10 therapeutic device, scratch your back and still feel itchy, it’s probably time to seek medical attention. There’s no hope for you and those wounds need to be tended to. [Back Scratcher World (real site) via Nerd Approved] More »
Peripherals
iPod Speaker System by Jean-Michel Jarre’s Has Le Style
11:15PM Kit Eaton | Jean-Michel Jarre has stopped twiddling with his synthesiser long enough to design this iPod dock/speaker system dubbed Aerosystems, and it’s undeniably stylish. And un petit peu phallic. It’s aimed at the top-end of the dock market, since it’s specifically designed to deliver high-quality audio: the circuitry in its integrated amp is apparently clever enough to add back some of the quality that’s missed by MP3 encoding, and it’s got ultra-resistant glass for its enclosure. Though what that’s for, other than making it sturdy enough to survive being knocked over, I’m not sure. Still, that may not be your problem: for now it’s retailing in Europe for an equally sturdy $US570 (€449). [BornRich and Audioporncentral] More »
Networks
AT&T Sells 2.4 Million iPhone 3Gs, 40 Percent to New Customers
11:00PM Matt Buchanan | Not surprisingly for AT&T, the iPhone 3G is a strong part of their quarterly earnings report. Off the top they added two million net subscribers, ballooning to nearly 75 million total, and it looks like the iPhone 3G played a solid part in landing them. Of the 2.4 million iPhone 3Gs activated last quarter, 40 percent were to new AT&T customers (which, doing the math, shows that nearly two-thirds of iPhones are sold outside of the US now). Interestingly, selling so many and subsidising them so hard actually cost AT&T $US900 million this quarter. Oh, and AT&T is still the financial size of a small country: They spent $US25.7 billion to make $US5.6 billion. [AT&T] More »
Entertainment
Mini Slasher Musical Movie Inspired by Macs Vs PCs Debate
10:15PM Kit Eaton | Forget the old Macs Vs PCs rap and its slightly worn-out ilk, this has to be my new fave geek-inspired musical tribute. If only for its Dusk Till Dawn-alike transformation into a slasher gore-fest after a few minutes. Seriously—beating someone to death with a MacBook? Strange stuff. There’s just one flaw taking the shine off its geek status: the iPhone doesn’t have a flash, guys! [YouTube Thanks David!] More »
Computers
SMART Table for Kids is Like a Cheaper, Funner-er Microsoft Surface
9:10PM John Herrman | As much fun as it is to tinker with Microsoft’s multitouch Surface table, most of its applications have been decidedly gimmicky. By offering a lower price (sooner than MS), more compact design, and more complete suite of software, SmartTech wants to bring multitouch tables to the people who would probably most appreciate them — kids. From the video (and press release), it looks as if the SMART Table has a nearly identical — if not better — set of capabilities to the Surface: multitouch, gesture support, a 27in screen and a super-simple SDK. Details are slim at the moment, but the price is a comparatively low $US7000, so expect to see the SMART Table popping up in more affluent school districts as early as Spring 2009. [SMART via Crunchgear] More »
Science
New Robot Lets Surgeons Operate on a Heart While It Still Beats
8:42PM Kit Eaton | Heart surgery is usually a case of “be still my beating heart” since it’s easier to work with static tissue, despite the risk of brain damage and all the complications of cardiopulmonary bypass machines. No longer, perhaps: some clever bods at Harvard University and the Children’s Hospital Boston have come up with a robotic system that can compensate for the movements of a heart in real time…meaning certain procedures can be performed to fix a dicky ticker without halting its beat. More »
Hardware
Intel: ARM is Fat, Ugly, Responsible for All of iPhone’s Problems
7:55PM John Herrman | At the Intel Developer Forum in Taiwan, an Intel chief took an opportunity to piss all over one of the company’s biggest mobile competitors. “The shortcomings of the iPhone are not because of Apple,” he said, “The shortcomings of the iPhone have come from ARM.” What shortcomings are those, exactly? “Even if they do have full [Internet] capability, the performance will be so poor.” So in other words, by “the shortcomings of the iPhone,” Intel means “slowish javascript rendering.” For a solution to these problems, Intel makes and unexpected and revolutionary recommendation: “If you want to run full internet, you’re going to have to run an Intel-based architecture.” Oh! More »
Software
Android’s Interface Designers Show Us How It Could Have Looked
7:21PM John Herrman | The Astonishing Tribe, the interface wunderkinds that designed the G1’s Android UI, have released a series of images and videos showing off a few other mobile design concepts — some that clearly didn’t make the Android cut, and others that were probably never intended to. These mockups could be penance for the actual Android UI, which we’ve described as “scrambled,” “overly complicated” and, generously, “kinda pretty,” but whatever the intent, some of these designs are fascinating. More »
Design
